Article #1: If you ask me where my love for genre lies, it will fall into the category of horror. I love a good horror film, ones that use suspense and tension to scare you, rather than cheap jump scares and gore. I love the tropes, the silliness of B-Movie horror flicks, and the iconic horror villains. Comics are a medium than can work well for horror villains, mixing the best of modern and classic horror. Comics can deliver visual scenes that most movies can't match and they allow you a better insight into the minds of the villains and the protagonists. Hell, even the right choice of letters for a villain's speech bubbles, can add a chilling effect to the comic. A great example is the portrayal of The Joker in Scott Snyder, Jock, and Francesco Francavilla's Detective Comics run, now available in The Black Mirror hardcover. Zeb Wells is a writer I admire, because he always seems to be trying to do new things with comic book villains. While his Amazing Spider-Man arc SHED, featuring the Lizard, was a prime example of how this could go wrong, Wells has hit solid gold with Carnage USA. In the five issue Carnage USA mini, Cletus Kassidy, the man in possession of the symbiote Carnage, has used his symbiotic powers to take control of a small American town, turning it's inhabitants into symbiotic, mindless slaves. Sent in to stop him is the Avengers team consisting of The Thing, Wolverine, Captain America, Hawkeye, and Spider-Man. By the end of the first issue, all but Spider-Man have been turned into Carnage's symbiotic slaves and Spider-Man is left to fight on his own.
Issue two switches up the almost singular viewpoint of the last issue, allowing us to be introduced to several new players on the board, almost all of which end up portraying some classic horror trope at one point or another. Rather than look at them as the rather shallow characters they are come off as in this issue, I will look at them as the horror tropes they represent, which I hope was Zeb Well's intention.
Our Hero & His Group: Spider-Man is still very much the hero of this story, but it's the rag-tag group of normal survivors who kick ass here, saving Spider-Man as the symbiotic Avengers nearly kill him. These survivors take Spider-Man in, believing him to be the first of the support that will come to save them. Spider-Man is not his usual quippy self this issue, most of his jokes coming off as forced, because of the fact he has to deal with the fact he's been dealt the "Comes Great Responsibility" card and the fact these people look up to him and he knows he can't rescue them.
As for the rag-tag survivors, most of them are sideline characters with only a few lines, but their isolated hideout does set up some very interesting places to take this stories, like the fact their is animals running around (yeah, I bet that's going nowhere... who'd want to see symbiotic lions, giraffes, and howler monkeys?) A barrier separating the humans from the others is a classic horror trope, right down to the dwindling supplies and power source and I'm anxious to see things go topsy-turvey when that barrier falls.
The Survivor: Scorn. The one who survived the first incident, the survivor is often considered the hero or the specialist in these types of stories, but Scorn seems to be neither, playing a surprisingly small role so far. Dr. Tanis Nieves was a psychologist assigned to Shriek, who lost her arm and played a part in freeing Carnage from his containment and in the process, began to bond to him. This resulted in her getting her own symbiote and she helped Spider-Man and Iron man stop Carnage at one point. However, her symbiote is special, as it was bonded to her by a biological metallic alloy and thus has the ability to bond with all forms of technology. In this series, she's portrayed as the strong silent anti-heroine, who watches and reacts with a bitter desire; to kill Cletus Kassidy.
The Specialists: Of course, every horrific situation that usually gets out of hand does what many consider to be the sequel plan: Send in the specialists. A group of highly trained, eerily similar personality wise fighters. Seeing as how this is part two of Well's Carnage story, it makes sense to take this route. This issue we are introduced to a group of four Special Ops soldiers, each gifted with a symbiotic power. One is given control of a symbiotic animal named Lasher, one a symbiotic head to produce precision aiming from over a mile and half away, one a symbiotic arm that can absorb the weight of a rail gun and a massive amount of ammunition to no effect on the wearing, and the last a chameleon like symbiotic skin to make him turn invisible. Their near identical personalities and cheesy one liners make them typical horror soldiers, sent as the support for Scorn. An interesting tidbit is they were commissioned after Venom went AWOL in his solo title, made from the remains of Hybrid and placed in the hands of those more loyal than average soldiers like Flash Thompson. The Family: A classic horror trope, the villains believes himself to bring unity to those around him, taking on a father like role amongst those he has corrupted. For this story, Cletus Kassidy decides to leave the family members of one of the survivors human, until they ask him for symbiotic accession. Of course, that's not a happy story in the symbiotic town, for Cletus has split the family of three apart. He takes it upon himself to look after the baby, and he has Doppleganger follow a seven year old kid Cole around, until their mother breaks down and asks for Cletus Kassidy to make them part of the symbiotic 'family'. Of course, Cletus has a price for this; the three family members have to hunt down their father and kill him, so they can prove their loyalty to the family.
The Fighter: At the conclusion of the fight between the symbiotic Avengers and Spider-Man, a massive explosion frees Ben Grimm from Carnage's conclusion, to throw in a witty line and then try to fight the symbiote off as it retakes him. There are several examples of characters fighting to overcome an infection in horror and while most fail, there are the ones who succeed. I feel like this is a set-up for later on, when someone does break free of the symbiotic control; I'm betting Spider-Man, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was Scorn or Cole, just because Spider-Man has done this before.
I think it goes without saying at this point, I absolutely loved this issue. The horror film vibes bouncing off the pages thanks to Clayton Crain's fantastic and disturbing imagery and Zeb Well's B-movie script. Very few comics make me love the medium quite as much as this one did and I can't recommend this mini enough to people, whether you're looking for a good Spider-Man story or a great horror tale. This gets a perfect 10/10 rating from me, I hope others love it as much as I do.
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